Disability and Marginality in Medieval England and France

This course focused on disabled bodies and the cultural forces that acted upon them, as represented in a variety of types of early Christian and medieval texts in Latin, French, and English. Readings devoted special attention to blindness because of its strong metaphorical associations in medieval Christian discourse. The course will bagan with readings in disability theory and its relation to the study of literature. Literary texts included Old French farces and fabliaux, saints’ lives, Chaucer’s “Merchant’s Tale,” Henryson’s “Testament of Cresseid,” The Croxton “Play of the Sacrament,” and “The Tale of Beryn.”